The true discourse, Socrates says, is that which is inscribed in men’s souls and is delivered through speech. What Socrates disparages in writing is exactly what critics of electronic media hope to defend from the further technologizing of rhetoric … It is possible that MOO is the forerunner of technology that will provide the sort of structured environment needed for the “common place” of civilized society. If so, we would have a median between the oral and literate extremes.
Predictor: Langham, Don
Prediction, in context:In a 1994 article for Computer-Mediated Communication magazine, Don Langham, a Ph.D. student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute writes: ”MOO environments provide an interesting perspective on how communication and transportation media affect human interaction, on how electronic communication can produce a sense of co-presence and interaction quite unlike that associated with other secondary oral media such as the telephone. Indeed, I believe that these virtual realities stand as an answer to Socrates’ critique of writing, and to modern condemnations of electronic media. The essence of Socrates’ complaint against writing is that it disrupts traditional social relationships, both public and private. At the public level, writing destroys memory, as explained by King Thamus in Socrates’ story of writing’s introduction in Egypt: ‘The fact is that this invention will produce forgetfulness in the souls of those who have learned it. They will not need to exercise their memories, being able to rely on what is written, calling things to mind no longer from within themselves by their own unaided powers, but under the stimulus of external marks that are alien to themselves’ … For Socrates, writing not only subverts the traditional social order, it replaces the immediacy of speech between living people with deaf and mute symbols that are unable to respond to interrogators … The true discourse, Socrates says, is that which is inscribed in men’s souls and is delivered through speech. What Socrates disparages in writing is exactly what critics of electronic media hope to defend from the further technologizing of rhetoric … No doubt the current collaborative Gopher interface found in MOO environments is quite crude in comparison to the interactivity that will be possible in future MOOs … It is possible that MOO is the forerunner of technology that will provide the sort of structured environment needed for the ‘common place’ of civilized society. If so, we would have a median between the oral and literate extremes.”
Date of prediction: July 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Community/Culture
Subtopic: MOOs/MUDs/B-Boards/Newsgroups
Name of publication: Computer-Mediated Communication Magazine
Title, headline, chapter name: The Commonplace MOO: Orality and Literacy in Virtual Reality
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.december.com/cmc/mag/1994/jul/moo.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Stewart, Ben L.